Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Elizabeth and Oscar 3/9/57 (1-2 of 56)

"...for the first time in our lives we were on a turnpike."

The following is from a Scrap Book made by Elizabeth Johnson, totaling 56 pages about their trip with HH and Jean Uible to New York City and other points east in March 1957. Because of the length I will take the liberty of abridging/editing and spreading it out, starting well before March. --Catherine

March 9th 1957

Well this is it our big day has arrived at last. I had a date at the beauty parlor and Oscar dropped me off and went on to get a load of coal and a hair cut. On the way home we stopped at Jordans and got our clover seed. It was well past noon when we got home.

We had eggs for lunch and rushed over to Kendalls with their clover seed and on to Wilmington. In town we talked to Dorothy and Ray Adams and stopped long enough to say good bye to Mom and Dad.

Back home again, Oscar unloaded the coal while I packed and put the house in order. Dick Woods came and helped Oscar milk and I cleaned the kitchen and fixed ham sandwiches for our next day day lunch. John and Blanche came and it was past Midnight when we got to bed.

We were up at 3:45 AM and at 4:15 we turned out the lights (and hoped we hadn't forgotten anything) and we were on our way. We arrived at the Uibles at 4:35 and quickly transferred our bags to their car, put our car in their garage and went in to eat a fine breakfast that Jean had prepared. Catherine was up to eat with us. We rinsed the dishes and at 5:30 we waved good bye to Catherine and were on our way. [Not a big surprise that I was up, but makes it sound like they left 8-year-old me home alone.]

We went up Rt 28 thru Leesburg, then Rt. 62 to Washington CH. [Must have been in the 1960s when Rt. 62 bypassed Leesburg.] A train held us up there for several minutes. It was real cold but clear and snow covered the ground. We followed Rt. 22 to Cambridge and Rt. 40 to Washington Penna. [PA] It was real nice to watch the farmers starting their days work and realize we wouldn't be close to an old cow for two whole weeks.

We drove across the small neck of West Virginia and the country was quite hilly and we had snow storms. We ate our sandwiches as we drove along and as as the snow became worse we begin to see several wrecks. Harold talked of following the mountain road to Somerset but just before we got to Donegal we got glimpse of the turnpike [now I-70, more about the history of the Pennsylvania Turnpike here] and it looked better than our road so we turned over at Donegal and for the first time in our lives we were on a turnpike.

The turnpike was a new experience for us and we enjoyed it very much, especially the nearly 6 miles of tunnels. As the afternoon wore on and we got farther east the snow ceased and the sun came out and it was a beautiful afternoon tho cold.

We stopped at a Howard Johnsons for gasoline and it was here we discovered that Jean had left her purse in a filling station at Washington Penna [sic].

Captioned: PENNSYLVANIA TURNPIKE "World's Greatest Highway" OHIO GATEWAYPioneer of America's super toll roads, the Pennsylvania Turnpike spans more than one-eighth of the nation. It stretches 360 miles, from the Ohio line in the West to the shores of the Delaware River in the East. More than 150 million people have traveled over it since it was opened in 1940. Color photo by Herbert Lanks* (~1955)

Captioned: PENNSYLVANIA TURNPIKE "World's Greatest Highway" The Howard Johnson restaurant and Service station on the north side of the Pennsylvania Turnpike at Midway, halfway between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg is typical of the many rest stops spaced at convenient distances where good food and other services can be secured in comfortable settings. Color photo by Herbert Lanks (~1955)

*Herbert Lanks, in addition to photographing numerous highway scenes, also published several travel books in the 1930s-40s. Apparently he traveled all over the western hemisphere by car as his titles include The Pan American highway from the Rio Grande to the Canal Zone; Highway to Alaska; By Pan American Highway through South America; Highway Across West Indies (in which he traveled by boat between islands but then by car once he arrived).